The Bridge Across Forever, by Richard Bach

The book is an autobiography of Richard Bach's quest for his perfect soul mate, finding her and growing with her.

The book starts with Richard looking for his perfect soul mate. He meets many women, but finds it difficult to know who can be the woman he is looking for. He meets an actress Leslie Parrish, and gradually grows fond of her company. He realizes pretty late that Leslie is his woman. But he does not believe in marrying her since he feels his freedom may get curbed by marriage. It takes almost 4 years of staying together with her, that he is ready to get married to her!

The book gives an insight to how a human mind functions, gets confused, analyzes and finally reaches a conclusion; a conclusion which may seem obvious, but the the mind must go through these phases to be assured what it wants!

How to identify if one has met the soul mate that he has always longed for? If you ask SRK, he would say, "Dil ki ghanti bhajegi!" :) That will happen in Bollywood. In reality its difficult to know. Richard had almost considered Leslie as his sister, before he realized that he loved her differently! :)

Will your soul mate share all your hobbies, will like what you like, would dislike what you dislike? Well, no. In case of Richard and Leslie they both were different. Leslie loved music and was scared of even sitting in an airplane. And airplanes were Richard's first love! He was a dud when it came to music.

So what is it that really holds two people together in a relationship? It is the growth of the two in a relationship that actually binds the love between the two! While Richard taught Leslie to fly an airplane, Leslie taught Richard to understand and appreciate music. The differences between the two were shared such that both of them grew with each other. Thats what made them happy together.

I liked a number of ideas and thoughts that Richard wrote. The best was the concept of Richard talking to the Richard of the past and of the future! Dont you ever feel like going back in time and correcting some of the decisions of your past? Dont you ever wonder how you would be in future? Richard feels it too. And he puts down this thought so well...
When Richard went to his house with his wife, Leslie, he remembered how, as a child, he stood near the door dreaming about the lady he would love... And he spoke to that Richard! In this context, I loved this line: "I shouted wordlessly to him over 2 decades ago" :)

Dan Brown: Has he lost with The Lost Symbol?

My Answer is "No"!!
The next book will decide if he has run out of ideas or he still has many :)

Having so many best sellers against Dan Brown's name, one tends to read "The Lost Symbol" with huge expectations and a pre-defined perception about what the book may contain. The climax is what most people dislike. But I liked it.

This book is so much different from his other books. The best part of this book is, the way he has highlighted the American History. It is said, America does'nt have a history. And yet he wrote over 700 pages a story about the American history!

The plot is a simple one. Not too many symbols to investigate. So the book lacks the, "Oh I never thought about it" factor. Yes, we have thought about it now, since his last few books have been telling us so much about symbols.

The book contains a lot of interesting information. It talks about Noetic Science, the almost-death experiences, about how different religions are based on common principles and a lot of other information.

Overall, the book is an interesting read.

Five Point Someone

I read this book a month ago. Yes, I know I have been too late to read this book! But the point is, I finally read it. I read it after watching the lovely movie "3 idiots". And the book did not seem so much appealing! That's because, the book has been modified so well into a lovely movie with a lovely plot that the book seemed very dull. Ryan Oberoi's character in the book has been positively transformed into Rancho (Aamir Khan) in 3 idiots. That was the best change in the book. Overall, the movie was a lot better than the book.

I have also read "The 3 mistakes of my life" and "2 states". I liked the former and loved the latter! "The 3 mistakes of my life" is a simple narrative kind of a book. "2 states" is a very cute love story.

I don't plan to read "1 night at the call center" since I have already watched the movie! :)

The box-culture

I liked this thought from Richard Bach's book, "The Bridge Across Forever".

"Here's how the people live here, in big house-shaped boxes to keep off 'rain' and 'snow', holes cut in the sides so they can see out. They move around in smaller boxes, painted different colors, with whleels on the corners. They need this box-culture because each person thinks of herself and himself as locked in a box called 'body', arms and legs, fingers to move pencils and tools, languages because they've forgotten how to communicate, eyes because they've forgotten how to see. Odd little planet..."

Something to ponder, right? :)